Curling residency rules to get a look

Complicated system of requirements, exemptions prevails

Curling Canada high-performance director Gerry Peckham acknowledges the current residency setup for elite Canadian curlers is an issue that is “timely and incredibly relevant.”

It seems quite possible change could soon be on the horizon.

“I date back far enough to remember when all four curlers had to come out of the same club,” Peckham said. “And then it was the same city and then it was the same zone, and then it was the same region and then it was the same province. So it has been an evolving journey.”

The Tim Hortons Brier and Scotties Tournament of Hearts used to be the zenith for elite Canadian curlers but things started to change when the sport was added to the Olympic program in 1998. Most top competitors have embraced a quadrennial approach where teams are built with Olympic qualification in mind.

Despite that shift, curlers must still adhere to residency rules to compete at national championships. At least three of the four players on a team must reside in the same province or territory.

That’s forced some athletes to relocate, switch jobs or come up with creative solutions to prevent violations.

Other sports may raise an eyebrow at such a seemingly archaic setup. But the Brier and the Scotties are tradition-steeped events that remain highlights of the domestic curling season.

Those championships also involve a variety of stakeholders who are heavily invested in those events. Curling Canada has to balance that with the goal of success at world championships and Olympic Games, especially when the sport’s domestic funding could be affected by results at those competitions.

It can be difficult for Canada to put its best foot forward with so many priorities in the mix.

“It’s complex,” Peckham said. “We have evolved and allowed ourselves to evolve into a situation where we’re preserving the integrity of an interprovincial/ territorial championship that comes with so much history and tradition and culture. It also has always had a residency-based theme to it. So the question really is how long can you perpetuate that and to what degree can you compromise that.”

Aside from one “free agent,” all players on a team must be bona fide residents of the province/ territory before Sept. 1 of the year preceding a curling season.

There are exceptions — school, work, proximity to the border, military service, to name a few — but they must be cleared with the member association and Curling Canada ahead of time.

To further muddy the waters, curler hometowns can sometimes be a grey area.

World champion Jennifer Jones is listed as being from her native Winnipeg when she curls with her four-player team, but her current hometown of Shanty Bay, Ont., is used when she curls with mixed doubles partner and husband Brent Laing.

Rachel Homan, meanwhile, is primarily based in Alberta. She goes to school in Edmonton, her husband lives in nearby St. Paul, but she still has a residence in her native Ottawa.

Homan is able to compete in Ontario playdowns under an exemption for full-time post-secondary on-campus students.